


i know the weight of your throat

by cartographies



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1467031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographies/pseuds/cartographies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then it is Porthos that is on his back in the dirt, both of them pausing, playing out for a minute the fiction that Aramis has him at his mercy, instead of always and forever the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i know the weight of your throat

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Sunset Rubdown song.

One of Aramis’ first memories of Porthos is the man beating him black and blue.

In light of this fact, one might assume that the experiment (i.e going up against Porthos in hand-to-hand combat) would not be repeated, much less repeated frequently. Aramis can almost hear Athos saying this with the sort of resigned weariness that means secretly he doesn’t mind in the least. But Athos would not say this, because only someone who didn’t know either of them very well would come to the conclusion that a little friendly violence was ever unwelcome.

Aramis cannot, to his annoyance, remember the specific moment of his first meeting with Porthos. He must not have taken much notice of him at the time, which he can only look upon in despair as an example of rare bad taste in his past self. But in the time after Savoy Aramis supposes he hadn’t been noticing much of anything.

Aramis does however remember the general tenor of their first encounters, if not the unremarkable first meeting he would love to recall. Porthos had been a new recruit, which was a difficult time for anyone, without adding in the added complication of a disreputable and possibly criminal background. The tactic Porthos had taken to all taunts or aspersions cast at him was a sort of blunt friendliness that was somehow downright menacing, and soon enough everyone had for the most part left him alone.

Aramis, with hindsight, can understand how his first overtures of friendship had probably seemed the tiniest bit foreboding. The jovial claps on the shoulder in greeting, the grins, the innuendo; it had all probably seemed threatening in the light of the larger group indifference that had developed. Aramis setting Porthos up for some elaborate joke, some long con. In response to his earlier studied politeness Porthos had made no bones about the fact that he considered Aramis at the best ridiculous and at worst an irritation.

Despite the determination on the part of their fellow musketeers to resolutely ignore Porthos whenever possible, it would have been a difficult task to escape the attention of even the most stubborn when you are trouncing all comers in suitably humiliating fashion in the courtyard of the garrison.

A person not accustomed to soldiers might think this was a bad tactic towards engendering good feelings and forming friendships with one’s fellows. Judging by the encouraging shouts, laughter, and hearty backslapping going on when Aramis had stumbled on the scene, each new musketeer thrown into the dust was raising the most recent recruit in the collective estimation of the regiment.

Aramis had sidled up to a man whose name he couldn’t recall. Andre? Armand? Something like that.

“Impressive,” he mutters to his companion, and it is. In the heat of a June warm enough to get everyone out of doors to catch a breeze but not yet the overwhelmingly oppressive conditions that produce almost incurable lethargy, Porthos is shirtless. The smooth bunching of his muscles in his upper back, the fluidity with which his arm glides from his shoulder to catch his opponent in his jaw, the grin – of such pure delight that Aramis can feel an answering one tugging at the corners of his own mouth – it is all a sight to behold.

The man beside him just grunts and swivels one eye to take in Aramis’ sprawl against the stairs before promptly dismissing him. Aramis hasn’t even bothered with politeness with him. He’s almost as new a recruit as Porthos and seems a hair’s breadth away from falling to pieces entirely. Better to be clear when the implosion finally arrives. Treville’s ideas of what make a suitable recruit have always been unorthodox, and Aramis counts himself as proof of that.

As evening falls and a red summer haze creeps across the sky before giving way to deep blue, the fighting descends into good-natured drinking and revelry. Tables are dragged outdoors and multiple impromptu card games commence. There had been any number of openings for Aramis to take his turn against Porthos, but for reasons unarticulated to himself, Aramis decides to wait for his moment.

\---

This was not because his vanity wouldn’t allow him to get beaten publicly. Aramis is a person who gets along well enough with most people, at least in a surface way. If they are at first wary of him, particular changes to his brand of charm in future interactions are usually enough to do the trick. Porthos however, in continuing to resist his friendship, has presented a far harsher blow to his pride than any he could deal with his fists.

So Aramis, for the first time in a long time, was going to change his approach completely to fit the person. As a matter of principle, of course.

The moment comes, as it turns out, only a couple of nights after that mass afternoon sparring session. It is late, but still shadows slip here and there among the deeper dark of the garrison’s courtyard. Aramis had been talking with a few stragglers, either about to haul themselves off to bed or thrust out into the wider city in search of more mischief.

He is just about to remove himself to do the latter when he sees Porthos enter (the laughs and cheerful greetings coming from their fellows passing the opposite way revealing the change in mood towards the new recruit over the last few days.) In the decision of a second, Aramis decides to delay his plans for the evening, at least for a little while.

“Porthos,” he calls cheerfully when he gets within a suitable distance.

The suspicious look this earns him is no discouragement. Aramis finally peels himself from his post and comes to meet Porthos in the middle of the now empty courtyard.

“The other day, when you were sparring, it occurs to me that I did not get the chance to test my mettle against you.”

This gets a look of open resentment thrown his way.

“And you want to do it…now.” Porthos gestures with a mocking hand cast out to take in the midnight silence of the courtyard around them. Silent as it ever gets in Paris, anyway. The nickering of horses and drunken singing of men within the walls of the garrison and the calls of feminine solicitation and a hushed roar of merriment from the surrounding drinking holes on the other side of them providing a constant medley.

“Alright,” Porthos says, his broad grin not one of delight this time. He takes off his hat and casts it aside on a nearby stool. They proceed to remove their jackets and belts and roll up their shirtsleeves in counterpoint to one another, unconscious mirrors.

“Why,” Porthos says, as he begins to take his stance, “didn’t you take your turn the other day, if you’re so eager?”

“And get your fun all over with at once? I figured you might appreciate another chance to get out all your aggression.”

“Aggression, huh?” Porthos says with an unreadable expression in his eyes, visible to Aramis even in the dark as they begin to circle ever closer to one another. “Is that what you think it’s about?”

Aramis now recognizes the look in Porthos’ eyes, as he strikes out at Aramis almost lazily, testing the waters. He ducks the punch easily, cursing himself inwardly as he draws back up. It’s a sort of resigned look, an ugliness born of people behaving poorly but sadly typically, over and over again, until the person it is directed toward becomes ground down beneath it. But as Aramis returns the parry, easily blocked by Porthos’ forearm, the look is already gone, replaced by fierce concentration.

Aramis would like to think he has a way with words, with people, but really it’s all shots in the dark, trial and error. It’s why he talks so much. Eventually, with enough words, he can get it right. Truly right, profoundly right, shining a light into something once dark, so the person forgets his poor, inadequate attempts that came before.

Now he thinks he gets it. No showmanship and no flair will work on Porthos. Speaking straight is an effort for him, but he always appreciates a challenge.

“No, I know why you did it.” Aramis gestures to the courtyard around them like Porthos had earlier, stretches his hand to indicate some point backwards in time, the events of the other day.

This causes Porthos to strike out seriously for the first time, and from the way all air leaves Aramis’ body when Porthos' fist makes contact with his stomach, far harder than he had the other day.

“Think you’ve got me figured out, do you?” His voice is honestly angry, not the calculated and mocking irritation of the beginning of their fight.

“No,” Aramis says, and his returning punch is answered with a movement of such quickness that he can’t even grasp it, before he is on his belly, with his arm twisted behind his back and a mouthful of dirt and straw. Porthos’ knee digs heavily into the small of his back, his weight behind it the only thing pinning Aramis to the ground.

“I don’t presume to know much about you,” Aramis wheezes, “as this is the first real conversation with you I have been privileged to have.”

Porthos snorts. “You’ve gotta funny idea of what makes a conversation.” 

Aramis feels Porthos rise, and his lungs are able to expand fully again. A hand is extended to help him up and he takes it. He proceeds to use the momentum he gains to kick out and attempt to knock Porthos’ feet out from under him.

It doesn’t work, as Aramis is given a chance to contemplate from flat on his back several long seconds later. He is left to get to his feet for himself this time, wincing already.

Porthos is still close, stance tense and his face shadowed.

Aramis says, “I don’t know you. But this,” he gestures between them, “I get why you do this. It’s clever.”

Porthos strikes out, his fist landing squarely on Aramis’ jaw, nearly throwing him onto his back again. Through a mouth suddenly filled with the taste of blood, he says:

“Make them respect you while still giving them the fiction of thinking that in some way you still have something to prove.”

Porthos doesn’t relax, but his eyes seek out Aramis’, making contact and holding it with a sharp intelligence that makes Aramis’ breath catch. Porthos lowers his fist to his side. There is wry twist to his mouth as he says, “And what gives you the idea I don’t think I have something to prove?” 

Aramis shrugs. “I said I didn’t know you. I have no idea what you think. I’m just saying it’s a lie that you have something yet to prove.”

“Be honest now,” Porthos says with a laugh, just a little bitter. “Say it straight. It’s bullshit I have to work twice as hard and twice as long as anyone else to prove I’m worthy of this.”

Aramis says, “Yes. It is bullshit.” Looks back at Porthos, but doesn’t say anything more.

Porthos grins, genuine this time, and softer than any others he has seen.

Then, using the niceness of the moment and a better idea now of what makes Porthos’ tick, Aramis strikes out, landing a perfect hit that results in the only black eye he will ever give Porthos. 

This just makes Porthos laugh, hand to his face coming away sticky with blood. Aramis decides to press his advantage.

“Well, if you wanted someone to accept you as a brother, why rebuff me?”

Porthos looks at him as if questioning his judgement in allowing the bit of camaraderie they’ve just shared. “Would you have trusted it?”

Aramis bobs on his feet a little, suddenly feeling very content. “You wound me,” he says, one hand slapping his chest just above his heart. “I have been told I have a face of utmost trustworthiness."

“The face of a snake, more like.”

“I hope that is a statement against my character and not one against my looks.”

Porthos smiles with the an excessive sort of glee that should provide plenty of warning, and knocks the feet out from under Aramis.

“There,” he says with satisfaction. “Think I’ve got it out of my system now.”

“No, no,” Aramis says with a gasp. “By all means, if it improves your mood this much lay into me whenever possible.” He finds that he means it wholeheartedly, looking upward at the figure of Porthos obscuring the rest of the world, loose-limbed and at ease. He winks at Porthos theatrically. 

Porthos had looked down at him with a kind of laughing wonder. Reached down and hauled him up by the hand, breaking into full, lovely peals of laughter at Aramis’ pained yelp. He had looked at Aramis steadily, with a gaze both appraising and suddenly warm. Aramis had seen he was calculating something, making a decision.

Porthos looked at him with an appraisal in his eye that speaks of a carefulness that is altogether foreign to Aramis’ own brand of wariness. Aramis gives off an outward appearance of a devil-may-care attitude, to hide the inner part which guards against any breach in the defenses, a part so shielded that most of the time he does not realize it is there. He has convinced himself that it is not. Aramis would say to anyone he is the most open of men, and he would not be telling a lie. 

He will come to know that Porthos steps carefully, sizes people up slowly, in order to hide the fact that his defenses are the lightest of things. Porthos is wise enough, confident enough in himself to know just how weak his walls are.

Then Porthos grins, and a nameless, gut-level hope forms into something concrete within Aramis, his entire self coalesced into the effort of the force of this wish: let me have this one thing. If he had been a reflective mood, and his entire body was not one large bruise, he might have been alarmed at the intensity of the sentiment. But all he can feel in the moment, grinning up at Porthos from the dirt, exhausted and bloodied, is a sense of absurd luck.

His life seems to have led to this moment, Porthos here in this place for Aramis to look at. Maybe he had not thought that at the time at all. Maybe it was only later. His tendency to want to lend the features of a grand tale to his life is one he can occasionally acknowledge. He likes to think he would have recognized the importance of that instant.

He did, however, recognize how much he enjoyed looking at Porthos immediately, he is sure. Never let him be said to be slow on the uptake in that department.

“Come on,” Porthos says. “I have something that might help with that.” He gestures with cartoonish concern to Aramis’ whole body and then slings his arm around his neck.

Which is how they end up drinking very bad liquor in Porthos’ room at midnight, talking if not especially easily. Aramis’ officious charm still bumped up against Porthos’ wary reticence. Friendship did not come in an instant. He thinks that it might be something that neither of them has any particular talent for. Still.

It is a beginning.

\---

Now: another night, five years on. Aramis is winding his way back to the garrison, taking shortcuts through the twisting lanes and alleys of this part of the city, whistling cheerfully and one hand to his sword hilt, when he sees a familiar form step from the protective shadows of a street perpendicular to his. He feels his lips slide from their resting pleased smile too a wide grin. The night had been pleasant, despite his current lover, Henriette, declaring once he had arrived in her bedroom that she wasn’t in the mood for lovemaking. She had quickly amended that she was in the mood to take all his money at cards, and they had passed a fine evening doing precisely that.

Aramis is a terrible card player, and he is man enough not to attribute it to ill fortune. Because, as the appearance of the man in front of him shows, he often has the devil’s own luck.

Porthos walks in front of him with long, easy strides, hands loose and relaxed at his sides. He has no need to step warily with one hand to a weapon, even this late at night in Paris. Although Porthos is usually open and alert to his surroundings, Aramis has practiced in the art of hiding from him until the moment he chooses to reveal himself.

He continues walking, making sure to step carefully, rolling on the balls of his feet, so the heel of his boots do not announce his presence against the cobblestones. At the next available street branching off from this one, he takes a right turn and quickens his pace.

He takes a path that he knows will emit him at a point that reconnects with the thoroughfare Porthos is traveling, and there he can lay his trap.

Aramis does not have to wait long once he has settled in the protective shadows of the building that marks the end of the maze he has just navigated. To his right, he can hear Porthos humming a bawdy drinking song under his breath, and hear the heavy tread he is making no effort to hide.

When Porthos appears, Aramis allows him to get what he judges to be the right distance from him and then leaps, one arm twining it’s way around Porthos’ throat, before he can widen the distance between them any further.

The wine he has apparently drunk may have caused Porthos to not notice Aramis tailing him, but his reaction to this sudden assault is not nearly so lax. Before Aramis can tighten his grip, or reveal his identity he is flipped over Porthos' shoulder with a speed and force that leaves him breathless, and not only from the jarring moment of impact when his body hits the paving stones. At the same moment his back makes contact, a dagger is whipped out and held to his throat. Which is to say everything is going exactly as Aramis had intended.

“Make sure,” Aramis says with too little air behind it, “to watch the beard. I don’t think a bald spot would improve its appearance.”

“Oh,” comes Porthos' voice thick with a mixture of annoyance and fondness, “you’re lucky I didn’t gut you right off.” This is an old joke between them. Aramis does not think he imagines the purposeful nick he is given as Porthos pulls the knife away from his skin.

He knows he does not imagine the deliberate slowness with which Porthos pulls back to look at him, the opening he is so magnanimously given. With Porthos sitting back, teetering in a crouch with all his weight on his toes, he has the leverage he needs to place his hand at the juncture of Porthos’ throat and bear him back with one smooth motion. Then it is Porthos that is on his back in the dirt, both of them pausing, playing out for a minute the fiction that Aramis has him at his mercy, instead of always and forever the other way around.

Porthos grins up at him, a sharp line to contrast with the gentle curve of his throat, bared toward him. Aramis' open palm rests at the base of his throat, no force or weight behind it, the staccato rhythm of his friend’s pulse offering a clue to the true mood of the moment. “You sure?” Porthos sounds almost lazy, as if he stops and lays down for a rest in dark alleys on a regular basis. Porthos' hand comes up to grasp Aramis’ wrist in a loose grip, a nail scraping teasingly across the thin skin there.

Aramis smiles slow and hot, a completely unnecessary elucidation of his intent. With a leonine grace Porthos moves and has his hands in a tight grip on the collar of Aramis’ jacket. He has borne them both to an upright position so that they are standing nose to nose, breathing harshly.

Then Porthos laughs. Says, “Alright,” and draws back just far enough to take a swing straight for Aramis’ jaw.

Aramis ducks, but he is just a second too slow, so Porthos’ fist catches the corner of his eye instead. He does not allow the dizzying burst of pain to show. Porthos is always the first to call these bouts off, with a pantomime of mercy behind the genuine concern, which always has the opposite effect to his intent to get Aramis to stop. The knowledge that Porthos always pulls his punches is galling enough.

Then he decides to use it to his advantage, and staggers back with a groan of pain. 

Porthos says, “Yeah, right,” as always but then steps forward anyway in true concern, as he always does no matter how many times this ploy is used. Aramis may be the medic of the group but Porthos, as Aramis likes to tease, is the nursemaid. His kindness over any injury to his fellows, masked by good-natured teasing, has a gentleness that Aramis, for all his precision by necessity lacks. In focusing on the wound, he can not allow himself to focus on the fear and pain behind it. 

Aramis uses Porthos' proffered arm to his advantage and is able to throw him into the wall of the nearest building, with a thud to wake the dead. Luckily this isn’t a residential street. 

Porthos, laughing, whirls around on him and brings up his knee to hit Aramis in the stomach, while simultaneously using a hand in Aramis’ hair to crack his head upon it. 

Aramis feels the blood burst from under the skin where his lip makes contact, but he barely feels it, because Porthos has dragged him back to full standing by the hair, his hand wound tightly into the disarrayed strands and Aramis is panting for entirely different reasons. He kisses Porthos, licks at his lips until he knows Porthos can taste the blood there too. Still using the hand in Aramis’ hair, he backs him towards the wall, his hand coming up to cup the base of his neck. 

Aramis deepens the kiss, pushing his tongue past Porthos’ lips and using one hand to drag their hips together. Angles his knee to a place in between Porthos’ thighs, applies the right amount of pressure and friction until Porthos is as hard as Aramis has been for a while. Aramis’ is about to unlace Porthos’ trousers and do something about it when he hears a feminine giggle from somewhere to their left. Two women stand there, brightly clothed as tropical birds, a splash of color almost violent against the surrounding browns and greys.

Aramis feels no alarm, especially when he sees that he knows one of them. Lucile gives him a cheeky wink and then hauls her gaping friend off. 

With a cheery little wave over her shoulder she calls, “Forgive her, Monsieur, she is new to all our Parisian vices!” and is gone. 

Porthos laughs against his shoulder and says, “Friend of yours? Come on. We should get back. Just asking for trouble, loitering around like this.”

“I wouldn’t call it anything so dull as loitering, Porthos.”

\---

Once they arrive back at Porthos’ rooms and light the lamp, the true extent of the damage is revealed. Aramis’ right eye is a nasty purple and his lip will be twice it’s normal size come tomorrow. Aramis feels relatively content about this, but Porthos looks slightly guilty, and very irritated about that pang of conscience. Porthos has doled out worse to him, but Aramis supposes the damage to his face isn’t usually so vivid, and the sight is enough to unsettle Porthos a bit.

“Sit,” Porthos pronounces, gesturing towards his bed, as if there is any other place to sit. The incident that cost him his chair is one Athos is still inclined to get apoplectic at the mention of.

Aramis sits obediently on the edge, rumpling the sheets made up with a precision unusual to any other room you would find in the barracks. Then, suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion and comforted by the sound of Porthos puttering around the room, the sibilant sound of a cloth slipping against damp china as he wets it, Aramis lies back against the bed, staring up at the smoke-darkened wood of the ceiling with unfocused eyes.

Almost immediately he feels Porthos stand before him, kicking out at Aramis’ ankle with his boot. Not feeling so bad anymore, then.

“C’mon,” he says in exasperation, “get up. You aren’t that injured.”

In response Aramis merely throws his arm dramatically across his eyes, eliciting a groan from himself when it hits the tender skin around his eye. Porthos sighs, and Aramis, behind the darkness of his eyelids can picture his eye roll with perfect clarity. Nonetheless he feels the mattress depress as Porthos comes to rest beside him, on his knees as if in prayer, long torso curved like a comma over Aramis’ own. With a move that is somehow both exasperated and gentle, Porthos removes his arm from its protective cover over his face and begins to dab at the wound on his lip with the cloth.

After an enjoyable silence as Porthos’ warm fingers evaluate every inch of Aramis’ face, he opens his eyes, winks at Porthos and says “Thank you, nurse,” with an exaggerated leer, and pinches him on the ass.

Porthos' retaliatory jab at his lip is given with a bit too much force behind it and he reopens the cut. Aramis can immediately taste the copper tang as he hisses in mock injury.

“Christ,” Porthos says with a laugh, “you really can’t help yourself with the dramatics, can you?”

“Afraid not,” Aramis says and feels a sudden blooming warmth in his chest, as this moment, the one the entire evening has been leading towards comes to a fracture sharp point: him looking at Porthos, hallowed by lamp light, fond and laughing and about to lean down and kiss him.

Aramis had known what was coming, could see it in his mind’s eye, but still the first warm touch of Porthos' lips to his is the same unearned satisfaction he has felt a thousand times before. Some unknowable and incomprehensible act of God has caused the universe to bestow Porthos on him. Grandiose sentiment, perhaps, but then he has never been inclined to give credit for the best things in his life either to his own actions or the fickle whim of chance.

Aramis brings one hand up to rest lightly on the back of Porthos’ neck, the other sliding under his untucked shirt to rest against the searing warmth of his back. He’s like a furnace, curl up with Porthos in winter and you can save a great deal on firewood. Porthos deepens the kiss, the taste of blood mingling and then dissolving in the taste of the wine on both of their breaths. With one finger made suddenly unsteady, Aramis traces the constellation of scars across Porthos’ shoulder blades, a map long memorized.

Porthos breaks the kiss after an endless moment, pulls back to look at Aramis. With a considering hand he reaches out to touch the split seam of flesh at the corner of Aramis’ mouth. The drag of his calloused thumb against the remaining bit of blood on his skin results in a sigh of a rather different tenor from Aramis.

“You’ve had quite the evening. I should probably leave you to your rest. Don’t want to be responsible for you being out of sorts tomorrow.” Porthos says this with an admirable show of seriousness, solicitousness almost comical in its gravity.

“Your concern for my health – injured at your hands, might I add –” here a snort from Porthos punctuates his sentence, warm air gusting across his jaw in it’s wake, “is admirable, but I might suggest other ways of your making it up to me.”

“I couldn’t possibly – I wouldn’t want to strain your nerves any further.” But here Porthos just laughs against Aramis cheek, unable to keep up the pretense. Aramis feels the vibrations of his mirth all along Porthos' body where it is stretched over his, in his fingertips where they have buried themselves in the hair at Porthos’ nape. Now Aramis gives those curls a sharp tug, so Porthos draws back yet again, so Aramis can see the smirk in his eyes and the open fall of his lips in easy laughter for himself.

“I am not quite an invalid yet.”

“True, but now that you’ve admitted that I won’t feel sorry for you when you come stumbling out like a old man at roll call tomorrow.”

Aramis would reply, but Porthos has resolved himself. He sits up astride Aramis’ thighs and runs his hands up his sides, a gentle warm glide upwards, taking Aramis’ shirt with him, disentangling it with a muffled noise of protest from Aramis when the fine material gets in caught in his hair. Then a rough drag of his nails back down the newly bared skin, raising gooseflesh in their wake.

Aramis just waits, does not pursue the idle urge he has to raise himself up and suck and kiss at Porthos’ throat, right at the point where it meets his jaw. All the adrenaline of their sparring has slid off him, leaving only a wish to give himself up to Porthos, to do with as he likes.

Porthos, as always, senses the turn of his mood, and decides to reply to it with agonizing slowness. He kisses his way down Aramis’ throat, his teeth providing only the lightest of pressure against the tendons that strain against his skin, begging for Porthos to leave a mark.

Porthos is methodical. There isn’t any rush; no hint of the frantic mood that Aramis sometimes brings to it. It isn’t his usual style in the bedroom, but something about Porthos, even after years, makes him want to crawl right inside, and his only tools to dig his way in are his hands and lips and tongue. 

But he enjoys this too. He can only occasionally do it himself, his ability to deny Porthos in anything one rarely practiced. Now Porthos has reached a spot, a steadily sickening bruise just under his collarbone, a gift from earlier in the evening. Just the lightest of kisses against it and the ache it brings has him jerking up, rubbing his hips at any place where they make contact with Porthos’.

Porthos moves on quickly, his beard dragging against the skin of Aramis’ chest and stomach and his mouth following. He sucks a mark just above Aramis cheekbone as he unlaces Aramis’ pants and shoves them down his hips, then blows a teasing breath over the head of his cock while fisting the base. The teasing is gone as he sucks the head into his mouth, but the same ferocious concentration remains. 

Aramis puts his hand in Porthos’ hair, swipes his thumb in an a tender, unconscious movement across the skin behind Porthos’ ear. The room is very quiet. Aramis can be loud in bed, but he likes this hushed atmosphere, too, the old lamp hissing, the wet sounds and little sighs from Porthos as he bobs his head, taking more of Aramis into his mouth and then retreating. Aramis, as a test for himself, holds his hips utterly still.

He can feel the muscles in his thighs start to tremble, but the hand Porthos reaches up to cup around the curve of his hip is unnecessary, just a desire for contact, a tether. Aramis can feel everything about this in microasom, the callouses on Porthos' fingers as he pumps him slowly, the contracting muscles of Porthos’ mouth as he begins to suck Aramis in earnest.

Aramis looks down and sees Porthos' warm eyes on his, watching every moment pass across Aramis pace. Porthos removes his hand from his hip with a little squeeze and relaxes the tight suction of his mouth. Aramis begins to thrust up into that warm slack heat while also moving Porthos' head as he likes, first gently and then sharper at Porthos’ approving hum. 

He comes mouthing Porthos' name, no sound behind it. The litany is for himself alone.

By the time he drags Porthos up to to him, hands bracketing Porthos' face as kisses across his face, under his eye, across his nose, lazy and worshipful, Porthos has already undressed.

“We’re even now, huh?” Porthos says.

“Well, we’ll have to see how I do through the night. These things often take a turn, you understand. If I can’t walk tomorrow, we'll have to recalculate." 

Porthos doesn’t respond in words. He kisses Aramis deep and moves him to where he wants him, legs falling open to bracket Porthos’ hips so Porthos can thrust against the crease of Aramis’ thigh, a rough slide this side of too dry, which Porthos sometimes likes.

As Porthos starts to increase his speed, and gasp into the curve of Aramis’ throat, he reaches between them and brings Porthos off with two short jerks of his hand.

Porthos does say Aramis’ name aloud as he comes, the word coming out laughing and breathless. 

They arrange themselves in Porthos' too small bed with an amount of grumbling and shoving that belies the countless times they have done this over the years. Finally they get settled with Aramis’ back against the wall and his arm slung around Porthos’ waist. He likes to reach up, when he wakes up in the night, and raise his hand to Porthos' heart and feel the pulse there, slow and even. 

\---

Aramis thinks now, in the ensuing quiet, of that night years ago, that dark keen glance Porthos had given him, a moment on a knife’s edge, before reaching out a hand to haul Aramis to his feet, if he wished to take it.

The look Porthos had given him was one that did not say he had misjudged Aramis and was now seeing him in a new light. Rather it is a look that says that he hasn't even begun to understand Aramis, but that maybe he is a puzzle worth his time after all. Many people have looked at Aramis like that, usually in the heated way that said that they intended to solve it with all due speed. But Porthos' warm bafflement in that moment seems to speak a promise: he would like nothing more than to spend as long as possible figuring Aramis out.

In the coming years, Aramis would come to the realization that this was not correct in the exact. Porthos thinks of him not like a puzzle, laid on a parlor table to be solved with methodical precision. Rather he is some complex bit of machinery, the sort of which Porthos, incurable tinkerer he is, is never long without in his hands. He is pulling the bits of Aramis out, his innards like clockwork, his heart a lever, his mind a thrumming wire. Laid out on oilcloth in front of Porthos' questing fingers, probed and turned over and held up to the light. Then put back in place, with a wry nod to concede that perhaps it all could be improved for efficiency, but that would distract from the inherent beauty of the thing, and that would be a loss indeed.

Aramis is no mechanic. Picking apart the pieces of Porthos offers him no joy. Porthos for him is a thing taken in its entirety. Aramis' feelings for him are akin to that of stepping into the otherworldly hush of a cathedral, standing on the threshold taking in the whole. The impossible loveliness that exists in the harmony of its elements, perfection seemingly coherent and ordered but in fact anything but simple. The vastness of the stone neither dead nor empty, but rather holding with outstretched palms grace and warmth and light, if only you are brave enough to step forward and take it. 

He says none of this. Just leans forward and presses a kiss to Porthos’ neck where it meets his back and says, “Do you ever think about what would have happened if I hadn’t challenged you that night?” He doesn’t have to specify.

Porthos snorts. “Yeah. I would have lost an eye at that skirmish in Lyon the next year. Wouldn’t have improved my looks any.” But the jocular words are belied when he picks up Aramis' hand. Brings it up and presses a kiss against his knuckle that is almost ardent, courtly. 

“I think you would have looked dashing with an eyepatch.”

“Yeah well, I don’t. I’m glad you decided to make a bloody nuisance of yourself. Now go to sleep.” 

Porthos doesn’t release his hand, but holds it curled beneath his chin for a while, for long enough that Aramis drifts off to sleep, just like that.


End file.
